In Defense of Positivity

I want to talk a bit about positivity. There's been some discussion recently about how the zoo community has an over abundance of positivity, which some people say is a bad thing. Not to speak for those people, but the argument goes that having too much positivity means that we’re ignoring the problems and focusing on the bright side to avoid having to acknowledge the bad stuff. I get where this take is coming from. There are absolutely problems within the zoo community, and certain things inherent to zoosexuality in general in our current stage of society that are worth giving serious attention to. I feel like that’s something that we’ve never really shied away from talking about. But we also make a decided effort not to focus on it all the time, and I want to talk about why. 

I want this article to be extremely direct, because I want to really tackle this conversation head on. So, if you’re icked by the kinds of things that some people would rather us focus on (i.e., really really bad things), now’s your heads up that we are going to be delving into those things a little bit. That said, nothing graphic. Just wanted to give fair warning. 

So, let’s lay the groundwork here. Yes there are problems. Zoosadism exists, in real life, not just as a fantasy but also in real actions. Zoosadist networks exist. But even past that, there are also plenty of bestialists out there--and by bestialists here, what I mean is, people who might not be sadists, but also don’t really regard the welfare of animals past using them to personally get off. They see animals as objects, or commodities. Things, not people. There’s also the issues around the connection that the zoo community has with seedier sorts of sex-based networks. While as everyone knows, I personally don’t have problems with paraphiles at large, at the same time the direct link between us and MAPs has caused us pain in the past, and likely will continue to cause us pain in the future; nuance has a very short halflife in mass internet discourse, and also there are a couple of really different things at hand with all of that, like, there's someone enjoying cub art, vs others actually just sexing up minors in DMs, and I think there's some things we shouldn't yuck anyone's yum about and other things we definitely should draw a hard line against in our circles, but wow this is already a big enough discussion totally outside the realm of what we as zoos are trying to do. 

I’m sure there are plenty of other problems as well, but those tend to be the three big ones: heinous acts of cruelty towards animals, a more general flippant disregard for the welfare of animals, and the proximity we have with other groups seen as problematic. And these really are big problems. Each one of those presents real and serious issues not just to the health and safety of animals that we endeavor to make the world better for, but also to the community and our long term goals. I want to restate this: These are all very real concerns, that require serious thought and action from members of the community in order to figure out how to best proceed. 

So why don’t we talk about it more? Why aren’t we constantly raising the alarms? Why aren’t these the only things we talk about until the problems are fixed? 

Well, because it’s more complicated than that. If there was an easy solution to any of these problems, we’d just do that. I think most ethically minded zoos would agree that if we could just solve these problems and move on, that would be wonderful. But that's just not how real life works, and I want to talk a little bit about why. 

Let’s take this one by one, because I think each topic deserves its own space. 

Starting with zoosadism. The big scary word in the zoo community. And for good reason. There is a long documented history of sadists in zoo spaces operating networks, doing monstrous things, and sharing content that would haunt most people for the rest of their lives if they so much as saw it. Personally, I think we should bury alive anyone who actually harms an animal with at least a week's worth of air. But, unfortunately I don’t have the ability to snap my fingers and just make that happen. If I do ever meet a genie and get three wishes though, it’s a strong contender. 

So, what do we do about it? Well, I think the better question is what can we do about it? Here’s the problem. We as every day zoos don’t really have any recourse in order to stop zoosadists from doing zoosadism. I mean, we can do things here and there. We can try and make sure real-life-minded zoosadists aren’t in any of our spaces. We can do what we can to take zoosadism groups down. We can make sure everyone knows that any amount of maltreatment is absolutely unacceptable in the community. But, we aren’t a castle. Far from it. Anyone can put a zeta in their bio. Anyone can join a public zoo space. There are basically no barriers to entry, and there are very few realistic ways to put barriers in place. Especially if the goal is to grow the community and advocate for zoos at large.

And even when we do identify a zoosadist, what then? We can ban them from the spaces that we control, but that doesn’t stop them from still acting as a zoo in the places that we don’t control. And for the places we do control, this is the internet. It's so easy to just make a new name and account. If people want to, they can be in our spaces. Outside of actually getting them arrested we can't really do anything to stop that, and the place they'll be posting the stuff that could make them culpable isn't going to be a public zoo space. 

So, like I said, it's complicated.

As is the issue with bestialists. And, again, that word might mean different specific things to different specific people, but when I say bestialist, I mean someone who more or less finds animals attractive in the same way they might find sex toys attractive; something to get off with, probably not something they'll go out of their way to see mistreated, but, something whose treatment doesn't bother them one way or the other at the end of the day. Similarly to the sadists, we really don't have any control over the places that they inhabit. There is porn for them on the internet, and we can't really do anything about that. Many of them are attracted to animals, so by definition they are zoos, so saying they don't belong in the community to some degree also feels weird. But how do you teach someone that wants to just look at the underside of horses about ethics? Or someone who's mostly just engaging with the community on twitter asking other zoos if they want to content swap? 

At the end of the day, zoosexuality is a sexuality. People like the sex part. And that's totally normal. Human attracted people aren't expected to take an ethics course to search up the kinds of touching they like, and, just by the sheer volume of mainstream, curated, human/human content out there, they're also much less likely to accidentally support platforms that host inappropriate content. There's already a much more massive barrier to entry for people looking to find zoo content. We can say not to put your hand in the cookie jar, but when that's the only food in the kitchen and you've got a real hankering it's just not as simple as condemning anyone that chooses to do so. 

So, another problem that's relatively unsolvable. But what about those damn paraphiles? I mean, they certainly aren't helping our already tarnished image by identifying as zoos and also other things. Especially, y'know, THAT one. I mean, we shouldn't have to fight their fight too, nor do they have the same goals that we do. So we should be pushing for our two things to be totally separated communities, right? 

Well, I can see how you would get there, but I think that's also pretty much impossible. Data has shown that people that have one paraphilia type thing tend to be more likely to have another. And there just factually are people that are both zoos and other things. And similarly, there are people in those camps who support our movement and want to engage in our spaces because of it. We could try and keep them all out, but again, we face the same problem of like, the internet is kind of free range, we don't have absolute control over who says what and how and where. And saying someone is excluded from being a zoo because they are another thing feels kinda rough. Not only that, but that also means that we as a collective have to come together and decide which are the nono kinks, and which kinks are okay, but also to what degrees each one is allowed to be still invited to the zoo club. Not only would it be pretty much impossible to do that, but that would also require every zoo space to enforce those rules to the same degree or else we're not really prohibiting anyone from actually joining the "zoo community" overall. And that's another monumental task. Again, it's very complicated. 

Now, I don't mean to seem doom and gloom here. Those are super frustrating problems. They're real, awful, hard to rationalize problems. But also, there just aren't real solutions. Short of a campaign to assume positions of lawmaking power and put boots on the ground to have truly bad actors arrested, we're basically powerless over actually stopping any of this. We can scream and shout and bang on the walls, but the best we can do is try and mitigate the worst of it. 

And so, what's the point? I'm serious. What's the fucking point? Of any of this? Are we really doing anything? Is the zoo community actually helping anyone? Are we wasting our time running this magazine? Has the zoo pride movement been for nothing? Should we just give up? If we can't even fix these problems, maybe we should just wrap it up here and throw in the towel. 

Or...

We could be a little more positive about it. 

Does that fix these problems? Absolutely not. But, does that matter? The boat has holes in it. We can choose to sink with the ship, or we can grab a bucket and bail like our lives depend on it. Maybe that doesn't get us all the way to shore, but maybe it does. 

Our movement isn't the only one that's faced problems. Do you think every gay person was an angel during the times gays were fighting for their rights? There were problematic queers. Hell, there still are problematic queers. But does that mean the movement itself should twist into a ball trying to root every single one of them out? No, obviously not. Because it's impossible. Sappho was awful for our community, but she's got nothing on John Wayne Gacy, and yet gay people still fought for their rights. Evil people existing somewhere in the world is not a reason to not do nice things for good people.

Real zoosadists are a problem, and we absolutely should be doing what we can to keep them out of our spaces and report them if we're able to. But, you know what would make it much easier to punish zoosadism? A better legal distinction between sex and abuse with animals. And we don't get that without having enough social progress to have those conversations on a grander scale. That way, we can report abuse without fears of mutually assured destruction, and make more pushes to highlight the bad parts without harming the good. If zoos don't need to be afraid of existing, we can make a hell of a lot more open noise about people doing harm, and that noise will be easier for a general public to contextualize and join in with. Zoosadists will always be in the community just like how there will always be rapists in the sapiophile community, but if we really want to mitigate their harm, we need to aim bigger.  

Speaking of which, bestialists. A lot of sites host abusive content, and that's a problem. You know what solves it? It's certainly not just trying to scold the people engaging with it. Instead, what if we gave those people an outlet to express those interests without the bad parts? I get it, I really do. It's easy to demonize all adult content under this very icky umbrella. The ethics of porn can get weird, even with humans. But that doesn't mean that all porn is bad, and it certainly doesn't mean that everyone who watches it is either. I don't think the vast majority of the people that frequent those sites do so in search of abuse content, nor if you asked them would they be happy abuse content is there. But, it's so easy to tell yourself you only look at the good videos, or you just don't have anywhere else to go.

So instead of focusing on how bad everyone is, why not focus on how we can fix the root problem?  I mean, chastising people is never going to deter them. If you really want to fix the problem, you have to be a little more proactive. You need to give them an alternative. Instead of talking about how content is abusive, why not take all the non abusive content out there and give it a home? Make an ethical zoo adult content space. Make it freely accessible on the web. I'm sure that would be a significantly bigger blow to the numbers of other bad sites, and you suddenly have a huge audience you can talk to. Sure, it's complicated, but if the bad sites can do it, why can't we?

You know what else would help this problem immensely? More social recognition. If people didn't have to be so paranoid about filming them and their partner going at it, there could be a lot more great stuff out there. Clearly illegality is doing nothing to stop the big production companies from creating, so saying illegality is stopping more harm feels objectively not true in this specific case. Lots of people enjoy making adult content, just ask what percentage of furries have ADs. We can make that part of the solution, if we just think positively. 

In line with this comes a lot of education, the creation and distribution of which also becomes much easier with the ability to be more open. Imagine a world where, on the same site where someone goes to get their rocks off, there's also a section about why you shouldn't just get an animal for pleasure, that goes over the reality of living with a partner. And it can talk about the things to expect and account for to stay safe if you and your partner do take it to the next level. The page probably has some kind of alluring title that ties in to the rest of the porn-y branding, like, "Making Your Fantasies Real?" or something. Something that people who came to the site for the vids will probably end up checking out. Imagine a content platform that teaches people just how amazing and special animals are. There will always be people that just want to look at the underside of horses, but also don't engage with the larger community because they don't really want to get to know a horse in real life. But is that really a bad thing? I personally think that's a pretty fun angle! I don't think there's anything wrong with sexualizing animals, so long as there's no exploitation occurring, and those people understand the difference between looking at porn, and actually having an animal you get for sex. If you want to make the argument that all porn is abusive fair enough, we can have that conversation. But assuming you think there is some way to create ethical zoo content, you should focus on building a space for that: Ethical. Zoo. Content. 

Yes, the DM's from people asking to swap pictures or whatever are annoying. But you know who else has to deal with that problem? Basically all women on the internet. This is not an exclusively zoo problem by ANY means. Creepy DMs are famously a thing. But, I don't think the solution to creepy guys being weirdos is to start a moral panic around whether or not we can say we find women attractive as a whole. Nor do I think the existence of people sexualize women in porn in situations they wouldn't in real life means that those people are evil.

And finally, we come to the paraphiles. Let's start with a quick question. Do you think it's harmful for someone to consume fictional content of harmful kinks? I think most people would say no. And if your answer is yes boy do I have some research for you. If the answer is no, then I want to ask this. What's the harm in someone identifying as a zoo and also something else? Are you worried about it just for yourself because you don't like the association, or are you worried about it for the sake of the community movement as a whole? Because those are two big different conversations. Let's start with the first. 

If you just don't like someone occupying the same air as you while also being attracted to something you don't like, well frankly, tough shit. There are plenty of people who would rather not share breath with a zoophile either. If someone's attraction is enough for you to condemn them as a person, you need to realize you're falling for exactly the same pitfall that other people are about us. That's not to say other paraphiles don't have their own bad people and bad places, but as people keep mentioning, so do we. Unless you think the existence of zoosadists means we actually should give up on the zoo community, you should also believe that the existence of predators in other communities doesn't mean a condemnation of anyone that uses that label. I get that it sucks to be lumped in with people who you think are gross, but the zoo community is big enough for everyone, and we just happen to be a space where people feel more comfortable showing the parts of themselves they keep hidden in other places. We're going to have a much easier time accepting that and being grateful for their support than we will waging war and building walls. 

If, on the other hand, your concern is more about the optics of people seeing paraphiles and zoos in the same spaces, honestly, I fully understand. It's hard enough trying to dig ourselves out without having other people holding onto us too. But is that really what's happening? Don't get me wrong, there's one very clear high profile case of it going badly. But, I also know a lot of zoos that happen to also like other things that have done a ton of good for the community. And, I think people that are already discriminated against are going to have a much easier time supporting our platform. Why are we trying to push away people that can act as our allies? There's math to be done for sure. Maybe the harm outweighs the good. But, I think it's worth considering whether going scorched earth on anyone that has paraphilias is worth the cost of losing so many zoos, allies and support for our cause. I personally don't think it is. 



I'm an optimist. I think if you've ever talked to me you probably know that pretty clearly. I've never seen a glass half empty in my life. But, that's not why I believe in the power of positivity. I believe in it because from a logical perspective, it's the only way to actually fix our problems. It feels great pointing at the bad thing and talking about how bad it is, but unless you're actually doing something about it, you're actually doing more harm than good. 

When a place feels bad, I think it's easier for that place to actually become bad. When it feels like most zoos are secretly abusive, who cares if you lower your standards too? If there's constantly some kind of controversy going on, it normalizes getting into controversies. I think when you paint the community as black and white, a lot more people are going to choose black.

Positivity isn't about ignoring the problems. It's about believing you have the ability to come up with real solutions. Maybe you disagree with the way that I've framed certain things, or the solutions I've pitched. That's totally fine. It's not about that. It's about believing. Believing the world can become a better place. That we can make a difference. That we can do more than just be bitter about the problems that exist. It's about psyching each other up and pushing ourselves to do the hard things. The uncomfortable things. It's about creating a space people actually want to be in, and want to give their time and energy to. I know so many zoos who've given up because it feels like the problems are just too big. Those are smart, capable people who could be working with us to make things better. But instead, they lose hope.

Being a zoo is hard. We have so many things to figure out before even getting to our larger scope goals of acceptance and social change. But we're not going to be able to fight those problems if everyone just thinks we're doomed. We need to give people a reason to want to try. A vision of a community that they believe in, and that we can all come together to work towards. That's what positivity is.

Positivity isn't about blind belief in the future, hoping things will just one day work out. It's about having a plan, building a community, and doing something real. It's about beliving that you can make the bad things better. 

That's why I believe in positivity.


Article written by Tarro (October 2025)

Find them at https://twitter.com/hereforthezoo  

Questions, comments or concerns? Come chat with us on Matrix! https://join.zooeydotpub.org